“It feels really good,” Mkhalakahlo says. “Although it’s a dream for us, but we are proud to be farm owners. If the land reform programme identifies farm workers as part of the whole process, then poverty will be a thing of the past.”

Driven by a combination of factors that includes, a visionary and inspirational land reform empowerment initiative as wells as AgriBEE transformation, the Sunday River Citrus Company (SRCC), South Africa’s largest citrus packing operation, decided to support government’s land reform by allocation parts of its farms to its farm workers.

The initiative meant to enhance the entrepreneurial farming skills through farmers working directly with employees in helping deal with issues of distribution of agricultural land.

Another beneficiary of Hewitt Farm, Buyiswa Ndyenga says as farm workers they are grateful of what government and commercial farmers in the area are doing to identify farm workers as a way of addressing the legacy of the past as far as land ownership is concerned.

“To us this is the only industry that we have great experience and expertise in. I have been working in citrus farming for a very long period and I can use the skills that I have gained to maintain the farm value and export quality products production,” Ndyenga says.

SRCC packs up to 8 million cartons of citrus per year and has a 70% market share of the Sundays River Valley and 12% of South African citrus industry.

Started in 1924, SRCC is owned by its producers, who pack and export fruit. It has 160 commercial farmers of which 2% are from the previously disadvantaged communities.

It earns R600 million per annum in foreign currency, employs 1 800 employees of which 95% are previously disadvantaged. It also employs 11 000 seasonal workers.

Its total production is 180 000 tons per annum, exports eight million cartons.

It has an asset replacement value of R360 million.

Dirk du Toit, deputy agriculture and land affairs minister describes the venture as a unique model that his government could use in other parts of the country so that its 30% agricultural land redistribution by 2014 target is met.

“Citrus production is one of our foreign currency earners. It demands a holistic and smooth transformation that will not injure the export market. What makes this initiative exciting is the involvement by all stakeholder especially white commercial farmers. They are keen to use their expertise, skills, knowledge, the current markets they have to create business opportunities for the previously disadvantaged people,” du Toit says.

The deputy minister says new entrants into commercial farming face a wide variety of challenges such as lack of production capacity, knowledge of export markets and their high sanitary requirements which can only be exploited from the current producers.

“Low returns from some fruit land reform projects have continuously dogged the emerging farming sector. Also the international over production that at times see the prices going down, tariff barriers, long development cycles on perennial horticultural products are all some of the production barriers,” du Toit says.

In the Sundays River Valley project three citrus farms were recently acquired by the Eastern Cape department of agriculture and land affairs to empower 45 farm workers.

These farms include Watson, Hewitt and Van Breda citrus farms.

Watson consists of more than 40 hectares of citrus land, with more than 40 000 trees. It produces 1 500 tons of citrus annually mostly for export.

Hewitt is 110 hectares with 60 000 trees producing 3 800 tons of citrus annually of which 200 000 cartons are for exports mainly to the EU. Van Breda is about 80 hectares, producing 140 000 cartons for export markets and is home to 50 000 trees.

About 391 hectares are currently under citrus production and 177 615 trees are currently under plantation.
The farm workers haven’t taken over the properties yet as they still have to undergo intensive training in farm, administration and business management.

The farms have a total 374,1 hectares, have scheduled water rights under the Sundays’ River Irrigation Board scheme. A modern drip irrigation method and micro irrigation systems are currently used on the farms thus allowing for maximum flexibility.

Infrastructure at these farms is fully developed, all irrigation systems are in place, the orchads and access roads are well kept and only needs standard maintenance. The infrastructure needs no further capital expenditure though some funds will be needed to replace older trees.

The department of land affairs used R33,2 million to purchase the farms including also the purchase of water rights, infrastructure upgrading and orchards.

A further R2 million has been put in to fund the operation during the first two years.

The properties are used largely for the production of citrus for the export market.

They deliver their fruits to SRCC, which packs and distributes it to overseas markets via Capespan. Capespan is the biggest exporter of South African fruit and a reliable partner. 

Phillip du Plessis, SRCC operations manager says these farms are still registered under the department of land affairs, but are being run and managed by his company together with a steering committee.

“The company’s board decided to offer 30% of its pack house rights as part of its transformation agenda. To implement this decision a steering committee comprising various role players was formed,” du Plessis says.
The SRCC steering committee which had the department of land affairs blessings, is a broad community based forum where commercial farmers, exporters, the community, representatives of local, provincial and national government and Sundays’ River Valley area MP are all represented.

“The goal of this forum is to support and assist the land reform process in the area and to ensure the participation of emerging farmers in the commercial citrus sector. It also assists with the identification and facilitation of land reform projects and participants,” du Plessis says.

A private consultant, Johan Hamman was appointed by Capespan to assist the SRCC with facilitation of the identified farm workers with their project planning and management and acquiring the necessary credit facilities.

“Most of these beneficiaries are currently employees of the identified farms. They have hands on involvement at various stages of the citrus production process and some of them are working as supervisors,” du Plessis says.

The tangible benefits of this project on the quality of life of the participants are an annual dividend, salaries as workers, land tenure security and food security provision of the farm he says.

The project director, Mxolisi Ngangani says the have put up a training programme that will identify those workers with managerial capacity, and will be upgraded to become farmers.

“The rest will be shareholder and beneficiaries. We hope to have the farms fully transferred within the next five years.